BB #96: Connoisseur vs Gourmet

Contrary to the saying, this old dog learned a new trick recently.

Or rather, this old dog learned he’d been doing the trick wrong all these years and finally learned how it’s supposed to be done.

Learning an error of my ways is good but here I lose a distinction I’ve long enjoyed making between a connoisseur and a gourmet.

The first Wiktionary link above defines connoisseur (noun) as:

A specialist in a given field whose opinion is highly valued, especially in one of the fine arts or in matters of taste.

The obvious example is a wine connoisseur, but one could equally be a connoisseur of beer, cigars, fashion, rock music, opera, cheese, sushi, or whatever but usually something along the lines of food, drink, art, literature, or other topic demanding knowledge, taste, and experience.

And that, at least, is how I’ve used the term. So far, so good.

The latter Wiktionary link above defines gourmet (noun) as:

A connoisseur in eating and drinking; someone who takes their food seriously.

Making a gourmet a special type or subclass of connoisseur — one devoted to food or drink.

Fueling my disappointment, when used as an adjective:

(of food and drink) Fine; of superior quality.

We need to go to the gourmet grocery store to get the exotic ingredients for this recipe.

The restaurant offered gourmet coffee and cigars after the meal.

That is not quite how I’ve used the term.

[See the respective Wikipedia articles for a more in-depth look at what it means to be a connoisseur or a gourmet. The latter is strongly associated with haute cuisine.]

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That a gourmet is an edibles connoisseur means the former word is actually useless in making the distinction I want to express (though, of course, it’s fine in its intended use).

As already mentioned, I’ve used connoisseur fairly, if perhaps broadly. For me, it approaches the original definition of a geek — an expert in something arcane (especially in a topic most would shun) — though that term now seems almost fully conflated with nerd.

My point is, one could be a comics book connoisseur or a 1960s sitcoms connoisseur. For me, one can be a connoisseur in any topic that requires significant knowledge, considerable experience, and the genuine ability to discern good from bad. A sense of taste is often in the mix, but remember that like/dislike and good/bad are different things.

[The difference between a geek and a connoisseur is that the former implies topics out of the main stream whereas the latter includes all topics (but does perhaps lean towards more sociable topics). One could be a scat geek (and I don’t mean jazz), but a scat connoisseur seems a bit of a reach.]

My problem is with gourmet, which, firstly, I don’t want to restrict to food and drink, and secondly, I want to extend the meaning of connoisseur in a specific way.

I want a gourmet to be any kind of connoisseur, but with the added distinction that the former wants to experience the full range of what’s possible in their field. A wine connoisseur knows a lot about wine, knows what’s good and what’s bad, and seeks out their preferred wines. Which agrees with the word’s definition.

What doesn’t is that, for me, a wine gourmet would be someone with all the above, but who also constantly seeks out new wines and tries wines they don’t necessarily expect to like just for the experience. There is a sense of exploration and experimentation in my definition of a gourmet.

[Perhaps this just reveals my ignorance of wines, but I don’t have a sense that the spectrum of wines includes those that are interesting and without technical flaws but which only a few would fine fun to drink. Some dessert wines, perhaps? In contrast to, say, the spectrum of beers, which includes many objectively excellent beers that many find undrinkable. (In my case, pumpkin ales and sour beers.)]

To put it in a geeky way, connoisseurs know enough about the parameter space of their topic to inhabit the especially good parts, but gourmets go out of their way to explore the whole space.

My perception here may come from finding a lot of supposedly gourmet cooking utterly unpalatable. A lot of “fine dining” can seem to me more about the experience than about actually eating good food (which is fine as its own thing). Nouvelle cuisine, for instance, but I’ll admit to being a meat, bread, cheese, and potatoes philistine. In any event, for me, “gourmet food” often meant something weird I didn’t want to eat, hence the link between gourmet and exploration.

And I do like my distinction between an expert who knows a topic versus one who also thoroughly explores that topic, even the icky parts. There could be a history connoisseur who wades only into the friendly shallows of history whereas a history gourmet would swim through all of it, good and bad.

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Now I have to either find a new word (suggestions?) or explain what I mean every time I contrast what I think of as connoisseurs versus gourmets.

Or point to this post (and hence this post).

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Did You Know: The terms latter and former (as nouns) only apply to pairs of things.

If Huey, Dewey, and Louie are parading down the street, Louie is not the “latter duck” — he’s the last duck.

Stay geeky, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.

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